How do I repair the degraded worktop on my DW745?

[kidwellj]

As shown in picture, the paint is chipping off my Dewalt table saw, which is otherwise in quite good shape. I bought it used and it came this way, so had assumed that I might want to restore it. Anyone run into this before? Have tips re:
paint that might work well to emulate the original smooth sliding finish?

 

[JonOb1]

Hi. Just a thought, the table looks aluminium so i'd say after sanding back hard, use upol acid etch spray primer, and then finish with satin black rattle can. Both avail at halfords

 

[MARK.B.]

Sand the top back to bare metal ,do a good job with the sanding and leave it Naked ,wax it and you are good to go.

 

[EddyCurrent]

You could use PTFE sheet on top, search ebay for "PTFE sheet" or "PTFE film"

 

[Jameshow]

If you want to keep the painted finish you need to sand any loose paint back to solid paint then etch with aluminium etching primer and the paint with a top coat. Some sort of enamel should sort.

Cheers James

 

[kidwellj]

This is amazing - thanks everyone for great advice. Will get sanding this weekend and report back!

 

[kidwellj]

PS, what do I sand off paint with? Any particular disc for my metabo orbital?

 

[dragon32]

@kidwellj

I have a similar problem with my DW745... although I didn't fix it yet...

I discovered by accident that pure acetone is capable of removing that grey top coat stuff quite easily... and I now have a bare patch that looks a lot like your picture.

Just a thought that rather than carefully sanding it all off and trying not to scratch it too much, you could try stripping it with acetone or similar... Then refinish as above advice?

 

[Jameshow]

I would start with something medium say 240 grit and then work down to 600 grit.

Cheers James

 

[Fergie 307]

Not sure I would refinish it. The original paint will have been baked on and pretty tough, might even be teflon. You aren't going to be able to replicate that, so likely any new finish you apply will come off pretty quickly. Personally I would strip it off with acetone, then rub it down using about 400 grit wet and dry. Wrapping the paper round an oilstone works well so you get a nice flat even surface. I would then just wax the bare metal. This will give you a nice surface, and easy to redo the wax periodically. All my alloy tables are treated this way, simple and works a treat.

 

[DennisCA]

I'd try acetone first as was suggested, see if you can dissolve it without sanding.

After that I think I would use wax. If I wanted some kind of finish on that I think maybe something like 2k epoxy based color could stand up to the abuse, or it will soon look like it does in the picture again.

 

[baldkev]

As mentioned above, acetone definitely melts the coating. I accidentally got a bit of expanding foam on mine, i put a spray of gun cleaner ( acetone ) on a wet wipe and as soon as it touched the table the coating melted luckily it was only a small patch